


Motion Sensors

by scullyphile



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Break Up, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 17:43:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5342816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyphile/pseuds/scullyphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully decides to leave. Pre-Revival. For X-Files Writing Challenge. Prompt: Touch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Motion Sensors

The porch light flicked on again as its motion sensor caught her movement. The fact that she had managed to stand there for ten minutes in the dark wasn’t lost on her. It was inexplicable, the way being illuminated made her feel colder, goosebumps rising on her arms. Several more minutes passed as Scully stood hugging herself, fingers curled on her bare biceps, and the light would have given up again had another body not wandered into its radius.

“Hey,” he said, touching her hand where it rested on her arm. She twisted away, breaking his touch, and took a step. In that moment she hated herself, hated that his touch had made her recoil, hated that she couldn’t take it back, hated that her decision was made. She would leave.

Certain as she was, it still took her several days to go, and Mulder seemed afraid that more contact would trigger her egress. Each time she rolled on her side in the dark of their bedroom to look at him, she guessed he was awake. It seemed he was unwilling to sleep. Although it was too dark to see his eyes, she could tell he was on his back, probably staring at the ceiling. If she rose to use the bathroom she sensed his gaze upon her.

There were times she considered reaching across the gap between them and pressing her palm to his bare chest, but no matter how many times the urge came she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She stayed on her side of the bed, arms heavy. There would be no leaving in the night.

In those days between deciding to leave and leaving, she said goodbye to all of the things she would miss about him, but she never said goodbye to him.

He went for a jog one morning, and she watched him take a trail north into the woods. When she could no longer see him among the trunks of the trees, she sighed a trembling sigh. Pushing open the screen door, she walked to the car, lifted her bags into the trunk–there were only two–and took the road south, certain now that he wouldn’t see her go.


End file.
